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How-To Geek

In January we showed you a video of Waton in a practice round against Jeopardy champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. Last night they squared off in a real round of Jeopardy with Watson in a tie with Rutter.

Watson held his own against the two champions leveraging the 90 IBM Power 750 servers, 2,880 processors, and the 16TB of memory driving him to his full advantage. It was impressive to watch the round unfold and to see where Watson shined and where he faltered.

Check out the video below to footage of Watson in training and then in action on Jeopardy. Pay special attention to the things that trip him up. Watson answers cut and dry questions with absolute lighting speed but stumbles when it comes to nuances in language–like finis vs. terminus in the train question that Jennings answered correctly.

Jason Fitzpatrick is a warranty-voiding DIYer who spends his days cracking opening cases and wrestling with code so you don't have to. If it can be modded, optimized, repurposed, or torn apart for fun he's interested (and probably already at the workbench taking it apart). You can follow him on Twitter if you'd like.